Management of a Single-User Multi-Robot Teleoperated System for Handling Large Valves in Offshore Plants

Teleoperated robot systems have been developed for operator to allow for various tasks via the remote control system. Even though they have been used in industrial applications such as construction, assembly, maintenance and etc., we cannot find a multi-agent remote controlled robot system as 1:N (here, '1' refers to the number of operators, and N denotes the number of robots) cooperated multi-robot system. 1:1 robot system is unsuitable due to limits of the robotic workspace or power of only one slave robot. The use of a multi-robot system makes it possible to perform various kinds of sophisticated tasks, such as handling large or heavy objects. This paper proposes integrated robot management of a single-user multi-robot teleoperated system for handling large valves in offshore plants that is designed to perform a 1:N mode, in which a single operator teleoperates a number of slave robots directly to conduct a large valve handling task, or in an autonomous cooperation mode between slave robots in order to overcome the limitations of the aforementioned 1:1 teleoperation system. The aforementioned management is responsible for the role sharing and integration of slave robots to divide the operation mode of the slave robots into various types according to the operator's intervention level and the characteristics of the target operation (valve handling) beforehand and to perform the target operation using the robot operation mode selected by the operator. The management also includes technologies for the following: (1) a role change between slave robots that are controlled remotely and slave robots that perform the autonomous operation, (2) path generation for slave robots that perform the autonomous operation, and (3) path compensation when slave robots contact the surrounding obstacles while performing the operation under various situations where one of the slave robots simply follows the operation command given by a remote operator via the management software and the rest of the slave robots follow the operation of a slave robot that is remotely controlled, or where all slave robots perform an autonomous operation, to achieve the operation goal set by the operator. Further, when the target operation (valve handling) is a simple repetitive job that is performed continuously, the management includes a remote teaching and playback technology using which the slave robots edit and store the operation command created via remote teaching from a remote operator, thereby following the stored operation commands repeatedly without any operation intervention for the subsequent repetitive operations performed to achieve the operation goal.